Thursday, October 06, 2005

I am going to be appearing on the Infidel Guy show at 8:00 Eastern Time on Friday, October 7th.

The topic of that discussion will be Theistic moral claims and why they fail.

In this regard, I assume that one of the questions that people may have over the possibility of this site is that "The Atheist Ethicist" is a contradiction in terms -- like "The Round Square". Since you cannot have ethics without religion, you cannot have an ethicist who does not believe in God.

Ethics Without God

Actually, you can, quite simply. Let me explain how by laying out the foundation for an ethics without God.

When I was a young teenager, I put my hand on a piece of hot metal -- my whole hand, palm-down, on a piece of metal that had just cooled to the point that it no longer glowed. I snapped my hand back immediately, but the metal still blistered the palm of my hand with 2nd degree burns.

I do not need to believe in God to know that I do not want anything like that to happen again. A person does not have to believe in God to have likes and dislikes, and to dislike some things (e.g., 2nd degree burns) very much.

I don't need to believe in God to have a reason to take action to prevent those things from happening. If we talk more generally about "being burned", I do not need to believe in God to have smoke alarms installed in my house, make sure the house is well wired, and have a fire department established and staffed with people who will rush over and rescue me and my family.

The same is true of my neighbors. They, also, do not need to believe in God to take precautions against the possibility of fire or the creation of a fire department to fight a fire if one should start.

Also, my neighbors and I have reason to hold electricians and fire-department staff to certain standards. We want our houses wired so that they do not catch fire. If they do catch fire, we want the fire-fighters there promptly and sufficiently trained to do the work assigned to them.

It's also not the case that just any old standards would do. We cannot draw a set of random standards out of a hat and say, "These will be our standards for a good electrician, or a good firefighter." Some electricians will be better than others.

Not only do we have reason to set standards for electricians and firefighters, but we also have reason to set standards for neighbors. Again, it is not the case that just any old standards will do. We have reason to seek neighbors that will help in times of need, and refrain from doing harm at all other times.

Furthermore, we have tools available to help us establish these standards. Those tools are praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. The individual teaching others the standards for being a good neighbor praises those who are kind and helpful, and condemns those who do harm. The technique is particularly powerful when it is applied to children; they pick up these standards much more easily. However, it also works on adults.

The standards that I use when I write these essays are the standards of good neighborliness.

If There Is No God

"Alonzo, if there is no God, than what is to keep you from doing evil things?"

Answer: Because I do not want to.

Assume that I have an opportunity to walk off with something that belongs to somebody else -- some money that they have left sitting around, or something else of value. I know that there is nobody watching, no hidden cameras, no way to tell that I took the money.

The question, "Why don't I take the money?" is like the question, "Why don't you stick your hand on a hot metal plate?" Because of my aversion to being burned, you can trust that I will not stick my hand on a hot metal plate (on purpose), even if you were to leave me alone in a room with nobody to watch over me. I do not need to be told of a God who will punish me if I put my hand on that plate. I can be trusted not to do this even if there is no God.

The same is true with taking other people's money. I do not take it because I am adverse to taking things that belong to other people. Even when there is nobody looking over my shoulder, I am no more inclined to take the money than I am to touch the hot metal plate.

In the previous section, I discussed how we teach the standards for being a good neighbor through praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. This is what we are teaching. We are trying to create people who are so averse to taking things that do not belong to them, that they will not take money even when there is nobody looking over their shoulder.

We do so by praising honesty and condemning dishonesty to the degree that each of us approaches the possibility of taking money belonging to somebody else the way we view sticking our hand on a hot metal plate. We will not do it, even when we are alone.

Similarly, we are trying to create people who like to help others to the degree that they will volunteer to do so even when there is no reward in it, just like those who do not ask, "What is in it for me?" before they will eat a donut. The answer of the question, "What is in it for me?" is, for the good person, the simple fulfillment of the desire to help others.

The Meaning of Life

On a broader scale, there is the question, "How can your life have meaning if you do not believe in God?"

Answer: There is no God. Spending one's life in service to an entity that does not exist is a waste. It is like spending one's life digging a hole to bury something that does not exist, or holding up a wall that has no chance of falling. If a person remains ignorant that his life served no purpose, he may die thinking that he has lived this fulfilled life. In fact, tragically, his life was wasted.

I choose to help entities that are real. I choose to help people who are a part of the real world, who feel real pain and suffering, and who know real joy and sorrow.

Furthermore, the beings that I choose to help lack perfect wisdom and omnipotence, so they could use my help. Even if there is a God, He does not need me and there is nothing that I can do for Him that He cannot do for himself. If a neighbor at risk of suffering some harm or injustice exists or will exist, I might be able to offer real help. I might be able to help him avoid suffering he might not have been able to avoid himself.

I choose to help real people who could use my help, rather than an imaginary being who would not need my help even if it actually did exist. Comparing the two options, it is easy to decide which has the most meaning.

18 comments:

Jan Shawyer
said...

I found your logic valid and thoughtful and your analogies useful. However, would it not be more to the point to expose the fallacy that morals/ethics can be meaningful if they come from a dictatorial omnipotent being?It seems to me that followers of any particular theology must follow the edicts of the deity even if they are cruel and inhumane (as is recorded often in the various religious scriptures).In fact, I think one can safely say that religion and morals are mutually exclusive.

Is your objection to these rules that they come from a dictatorial omnipotent being? Or that they are cruel and inhumane?

I do not see the first item as a problem. I know that if I were somehow granted perfect knowledge and omnipotence, I would certainly use it to say "Quit doing evil, or else."

On the other hand, cruel and inhumane instructions are definitely a problem.

Ultimately, though, I think that a religious person can easily be moral -- as long as he believes in a religion that tells him to live in peace with his neighbors, If a religion says, "attack your neighbors," there is a problem. If it says, "Help your neighbors when they need it and do them no harm at all other times," then this religious person can certainly also be moral.

I don't do what I think is moral because I am afraid that God is going to punish me. I think it is a little simplistic to make an asumption like that. Also it as not as though I waste all my time doing things exclusively for God, often the things that I do are because of God, but they benifit the people around me. We have different modivations but the same result.

In what I write, I have repeatedly stressed the fact that whether a person believes in God or does not believe in God is not what is relevant.

The relevant issue is on whether he helps or attacks his neighbors. In this regard, the theist who attacks his neighbors because he thinks that God commands it, and the atheist who attacks his neighbors because he thinks that no God forbids it, are in the same category.

I agree with "Anonymous" when he says that the good things we do are because of God, and I also agree with you (I don't know why) when you say that whether or not a person believes in God is not the important part. You cannot say that "just because you wanna do good things, you do them, and if you don't want to do something, you don't do it. There is an inner "something", call it whatever you want, that pushes you to why you will or won't. Say or don't say that it is God, but there is a reason that you choose to be a good person. The Holy Spirit and Jesus' teachings go a long way, although you choose to NOT believe in them both. We all can say that God is not the reason for our actions, but we all know He has to be. He is the reason we're all still here. I wouldn't take the money if I was alone either, because it violates the 8th commandment of God, which tells us plainly not to steal. God is the reason we're still here, and although you choose not to believe He is, He continually shows you favor (I don't know why) when you denounce His existence. Don't you know that, if He wanted to, He could take your life from you? But He loves you enough (still) to leave you here. I am not trying to push my faith onto you, nor am I trying to turn you away, but I want you to know that, since there is an underlying "reason" for everything, and since we MUST KNOW everything (which we can't), He is the person you need to go to for answers. I do need to warn you that "...His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways higher than our ways...", so you will not KNOW everything. All the questions are for Him to answer. Just a few insights. God bless you.

I have a few things that I would like to share with you about your "ethics" proposals. First of all, there is a god - He is God, the God of all gods. Second of all, I don't how you can say that you do good because you want to and that you don't want to hurt people? We don't just do good and love everybody because we want to. We do so because we are required to by God. You can't just love somebody and do good and not steal and not kill and help people because you can, and because you want to. You cannot be that good a child of God, first, and citizen without possessing the love of God in your heart. You have children? I hope they love you for who you are as a person - cause if you lead a life like you say you do, then you are fully blessed by God. I honestly cannot say that God made a bad man. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit off the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we opened ourselves to the likelihood of turning away from our heavenly father. WE WERE MADE TO WORSHIP HIM. God made everybody good, and it's even "gooder" that you live that way. But it would be easier to acknowledge Him for who He really is, and not just shove Him off because we neither believe, nor disbelieve that He exists. God is a jealous God, and it saddens Him to see His people turning away from Him like we do. Why do you think all this ruckus has been plaguing the world? Because He's letting us know that He is tired of our ways. You are a good man, but the simple fact that you don't know, believe, or LOVE Him makes you just as bad a person who murders for a living. Jesus said that the greatest sin the [outright] BLASPHEMY against the Holy Spirit. You should think about that. Oh, and what religion are your parents? I ask because, had you grown up doing, saying, and acting however you wanted, you wouldn't be how you are right now. Just a few words.

The Mayor of San Francisco responds only by saying, "I am sick to my stomach."

Here, I am being told that God drowned 50,000 young children around the Indian ocean, destroyed cities in New Orleans and crushed another 20,000 children in Pakistan.

I am being told that I should worship and honor the individual allegedly responsible for this.

In all honesty, the more children somebody drowns or crushes, the less I am inclined to consider that being worthy of honor, respect, and obedience.

If there is a God that wants to send us a message, I would like to recommend stopping a hurricane before it hits land, stopping a tsunami at the shoreline before anybody dies, or teleporting all of the children trapped into a collapsing building to safey so that no children die in an earthquake.

That would get my attention.

As I said, my position is that I do not care about a person's religion, as long as that person helps their neighbor when that neighbor is in need, and does not harm one's neighbor at other times.

As a follow-up, I do believe that recent natural disasters are a punishment for our sins.

The people in the Indian Ocean died because of a failure to establish a tsunami warning sytem, designed to be compatible with our best scientific knowledge about what tsunamis are and how they are caused -- which is not by a vengeful God, but by tectonic plates in the Indian ocean slipping past each other

The people in New Orleans died and their property was destroyed because people refused to listen to engineers who said that the levees would not hold against a category 4 hurricane. It was not the 'sin' of homosexuality that caused this. It was the 'sin' of a lack of foresight and an unwillingness to take proper precautions.

80,000 people died in Pakistan because people made a choice to build and live in houses built on a fault line that were prone to massive failure when an earthquake struck. It was not caused by a human decision to ignore God. It was caused by a human decision to engage in foolish construction practices on a fault line.

I am sad to see that chizzle and anonymous2 did not agree with your excellent article. I would argue that belief in God does not prevent chissle or anon2 from doing harm. Christians can commit murder and still go to heaven by accepting jesus as their savior and repenting their sins. There is no consequences in breaking the ten commandments and chizzle knows this. It is sad because chizzle believes in a God that sends all non-Christians to hell. Hell is an eternity of pain. Hell is worse than death. If chizzle believes in a God who would send you and me to hell than consequently he should believe that we desereve to burn in hell. If he delieves that we deserve to burn in hell than it is reasonable to say that he should believe we deserve death (its not as bad as hell). I dont think he believes this but that is because he is confused in my opinion. Instead of believing in a God that accepts and loves us he believes we should accept and love a God that condemns us to hell. I dont believe in God, heaven or hell. I think if more people took a look at what their religion really stood for they might decide that it wasn't what they thought they were buying into. Thanks for speaking out in such a thoughtful and respectful manner.

Wait so your assertion about not doing evil basically distills down to "Because i want to be a good person and not do harm." How is this anymore valid than "Because I want to be bad and do evil."? If you can answer this without using a social construct and only natural law i would love to here your Answer. (Don't bother quoting Locke he does not answer this question, or Mill, or Bentham)

I gather you gathered wrong. I have read the article, assuming that I haven't is quite brazen. Thanks for directly answering my question and not avoiding it entirely by attacking my assumed and fictitious scanning of your faulty assumptions.

About Me

When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to leave the world better off than it would have been if I had not existed. This started a quest, through 12 years of college and on to today, to try to discover what a "better" world consists of. I have written a book describing that journey that you can find on my website. In this blog, I will keep track of the issues I have confronted since then.